Pan Am Flight 103 explodes over Lockerbie, Scotland, Dec. 21, 1988

On this day in 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. A bomb planted in the cargo hold detonated at 31,000 feet, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew members – including 189 Americans — as well as 11 Lockerbie residents. Because the plane, destined for New York, was late in departing London, the bomb went off before the craft reached deep Atlantic waters, where forensic evidence of the disaster might never have been found.

In 1991, after a joint investigation by the FBI and British authorities, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, both alleged Libyan intelligence agents, were indicted for murder. They were accused of planting the bomb in an audio cassette player while the plane was at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany. Libya refused to hand over the suspects to the United States.

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In 1999, in a bid to ease U.N. sanctions against Libya, the nation’s dictator, Muammar Qadhafi, turned over the two men to be tried in the Netherlands under Scottish law. In 2001, al-Megrahi was convicted and sentenced to life in prison while Fhimah was acquitted. (In 2009, over the objections of the Justice Department, Scottish authorities freed al-Megrahi and allowed him to return to Libya when doctors erroneously determined that he had only a few months to live.)

In 2003, Libya accepted responsibility for the bombing. Sanctions were lifted after Libya agreed to pay each victim’s family about $8 million in compensation. But in 2004, Libya’s prime minister said the deal was the “price for peace,” contending Libya had acted only to get rid of the sanctions. His statement angered many of the victims’ families.

Pan America World Airways, which went bankrupt three years after the bombing, sued Libya, subsequently receiving a $30 million settlement.